I've been fighting for social justice all my professional life. I've litigated against the military-surveillance-censorship axis of repression; battled puritans, police, and drug warriors; and generally campaigned on behalf of citizens' rights. Once, I believed in the inevitable progress of freedom and decency, but things haven't worked out that way.

We've won a few battles: gays entered the mainstream, racial minorities took a place at the table, police brutality is less pervasive, or at least more exposed (due, perhaps, more to ubiquitous cellphone cameras than legal reform). But on balance, my generation has made a mess. When current events can be best understood by watching Comedy Central, we're in trouble.

This campaign season, I find myself reluctant to vote for either major party. I reject the Republicans' aggressive effort to intimidate the world and wreck civil liberties in a "war on terror," along with their destruction of the middle class by catering to the moguls. I similarly reject the Democrats' effort to intimidate the world and wreck civil liberties in the name of a "war on terror," and their willingness to betray the middle class by favoring a different set of interest groups.

So I registered Republican and voted for libertarian Ron Paul. I wanted to send a message that the "military-industrial complex" was threatening not only the stability of our economy, but also the fabric of our liberties. Paul's one drawback is his opposition to a floor beneath which citizens would not be allowed to fall. Paul's advocacy, however, for a smaller central government would allow states to resume that obligation. But when the Republican Party robbed Paul of many of his elected convention delegates, I despaired.

The drawbacks of the two major parties make them unacceptable choices for a voter who supports liberty but wants to assure all a fair opportunity to survive the competition.

The Democrats betray liberty by blaming speech for many social ills, banning "hate speech," "harassment" and "bullying," thus making free discourse impossible, especially on college campuses and in the workplace. They talk of amending the First Amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's Citizens United opinion. Democrats' unwavering support of public-sector (especially teachers') unions has wrecked municipal budgets and public education. They support an increased federal role in health care, even though the federal bureaucracy has become destructively remote and inefficient. Indeed, they support enhanced federal power in all spheres, which has been largely responsible for the creation of a dangerous national security and prosecutorial state — also favored by Republicans.

Republicans tout economic liberty but attack abortion, gay marriage, sexually explicit materials, and those who suffer economic misfortunes. They give lip service to free enterprise and cater to plutocrats' thirst for government's economic favors (banks got bailed out during the recent economic crisis, but not middle-class families mortgaged to the hilt), while abandoning the lower and middle classes.

And tacit bipartisan agreement has enabled the Department of Justice, once a protector of civil liberties, to accumulate power to imprison virtually any citizen, since no one can avoid arguably violating some vague federal statute. And despite Republicans' howls to the contrary, both parties are oblivious to the disastrous consequences of endemic overspending, as long as budgets reward their friends.

We need a political realignment, producing a party or coalition that protects liberty, reins in the national security state, educates the young, balances the budget, and erects a floor beneath which citizens cannot fall. Little did I earlier know that the parties of both left and right would turn out to be the problem rather than the solution.

A weed grows in Boston Even though it's a crisp November day, the flower boxes of Mary Jones's neat little bungalow are overflowing with brightly colored blooms.

Idiot wind Last spring, after the state Legislature rejected a bill that could have resulted in a wind farm being constructed on two undeveloped mountains in Redington Township, a lot of people in western Maine, figuring the controversial project was finally dead, expressed their joy by doing the chicken dance in the streets.

Capuano for Senate After a telescoped campaign, Massachusetts Democrats go to the polls Tuesday to choose a successor to a legend, Ted Kennedy.

An Obama confidant on the surge in Afghanistan Twenty-four hours before President Barack Obama announced a 30,000-troop escalation of the Afghan War, one of his key foreign policy advisors provided a view of the president’s thinking at Brown University.

A mysterious new inmate death Despite a scandal earlier this year over a prisoner death, state corrections officials won’t allow the Phoenix to interview a Maine State Prison inmate who has claimed in letters that prison staff abused an ailing prisoner, Victor Valdez, before Valdez died in late November.

Missing in action Good-government advocates often breathe a sigh of relief when the legislature quits Beacon Hill.

Time to end tolerance I'd like you to think about something. Ever seen the bumper sticker: "Intolerance will not be tolerated"?

Corrections disobeys another federal court order For decades, as it has with other court orders, the Maine Department of Corrections has apparently been breaching a 1973 federal court’s decree that forbids disciplinary solitary confinement at the Maine State Prison beyond 10 days for minor offenses, or 30 days for major ones.

Split atop the RI Tea Party The Rhode Island Tea Party, a right-wing assemblage best known for its tax day rally against government spending on the State House steps, was until recently run by three women — Colleen Conley, Marina Peterson and, to a lesser degree, Nan Hayden. But no more.